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E-reader innovation goes nowhere fast

On TechCrunch, Brian Heater has noticed something I’ve remarked upon a couple of times: as the Kindle approaches its 10th anniversary (my how time flies!), “e-reader innovation has stalled.” Apart from relatively minor or cosmetic touches like front lighting and waterproofing, the Kindle remains fundamentally the same as it ever has.

Heater suggests that lack of demand might have been part of it. He places the blame for that on the rise of cheap tablets and smartphones, both of which do multiple things including e-reading. Hence, interest has declined in devices that just do one thing.

He also points to the lack of newer e-ink technology as a potential cause—though it’s really sort of a vicious circle of cause and effect when you get right down to it. There’s a lack of demand for e-readers because the tech is old, and there’s a lack of willingness to invest in new display tech because the demand isn’t there.

Color e-ink, meanwhile, has seemed perpetually just out of reach. Technologies are just too expensive, too glitchy or both. And besides, a move to color brings us back to that earlier question: at what point would users just be better off with an inexpensive tablet? As an avid comics reader and frequent e-reader user, the idea of trying to marry the two is downright headache-inducing. Even comics like Manga, designed to be read in black and white, are much better served on an inexpensive tablet. The screen size and refresh rate do a disservice to reading anything but straight-up text.

Even a 7″ screen like the new Oasis’s is too small for reading something like a comic book in full size—and it seems unlikely Amazon will ever produce another extra-large model.

It’s funny to consider, but as sales dwindle and more and more people turn to tablets, one wonders whether the device that was supposed to “kill” the paper book will instead share its fate. Even if a new color display technology is invented for e-readers, if it’s better than e-ink and LCD it’ll probably be used for multi-purpose tablets itself instead.

Until and unless such a technology comes about, there’s no replacing the good old e-ink reader for people who want to rest their eyes and avoid distractions while they read.

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Published by Chris Meadows

TeleRead Editor and Senior Writer Chris Meadows has been writing for TeleRead--except for a brief interruption--since 2006. Son of two librarians, he has worked on a third-party help line for Best Buy and holds degrees in computer science and communications. He clearly personifies TeleRead's motto: "For geeks who love books--and book-lovers who love gadgets." Chris lives in Indianapolis and is active in the gamer community.
View all posts by Chris Meadows

7 thoughts on “E-reader innovation goes nowhere fast”

I would argue that the biggest limiting factor is not lack of innovation or lack of color, but the failure to offer 9 inch or 10 inch e-ink devices at affordable prices.

If this screen size sells for $300 or so, consumers are naturally going to expect a multipurpose device. On my samsung tablet, I can buy ebooks from GPB AND Kindle. I can also obtain DRMed ebooks through Adobe DE and Overdrive. If instead, your only option is to buy a single reading system, with access to only one bookstore, that device is not going to seem very practical.

My take is that the market for ereaders never became healthy and competitive enough to encourage innovation. Early on, the market became dominated by Amazon, which saw their Kindles as little more than a tool to sell ebooks. Some were sold below cost to sell Amazon’s ebooks. Others were sold at inflated costs as status symbols indicate someone was rich enough to pay $300 for an ereader and also own an iPad.

You’re seeing much the same with Apple’s closed garden. Genuine innovation has deserted the company. Desktops have to be all-in-one iMacs. Laptops have to be thin and virtually devoid of ports. Clever and helpful ideas like including GPS and cellular data in laptops apparently isn’t even considered. I can recall when you paid more for Macs but got more. Now you pay more and get less.

That is not all. iPhones are headphone jack-less and will soon be TouchID-less whether users like that or not. Indeed, in recent weeks it has become clear that Apple’s corporate decision makers aren’t interested in user feedback. Like early twentieth-century communists, they think they have “seen the future” and intend to impose it, whatever the cost to others.

Only with tablets does Apple have enough competition from Samsung that it shows a willingness to innovate. And even there’s its pitiful. Why don’t iPads have SDR chips to pick up digital TV and FM radio? That’d cost about $5 to add and it is virtually the only genuinely useful innovation remaining to digital devices. Why don’t all iPads have GPS chips in them? Again, that’d cost about $5 to add and mean that the device always knows where it is.

I could go on, but the situation is obvious. Innovation has deserted high-tech, replaced by silly gimmickry that’s of little value to users and an almost insane level of greed.

There’s an awful lot of wiggle room in a vague statement like that, especially since industry watcher statistics I’ve cited in some of the articles linked within this one suggest that sales have fallen dramatically since 2011.

2011-2012 saw a rapid change in tech. The Kindle Touch and a redesigned Basic was introduced bringing the elimination of the keyboard and bring a touch interface. They also dramatically changed the UI to accommodate that shift. A year later that was followed by the Paperwhite which brought front lighting, higher resolution and new screen tech. In that year they also experimented with reducing the full page refresh. Amazon also introduced the lending library in that time frame as well.

In just two years Kindle went from the third gen to the Paperwhite bringing radically different hardware and software. It also introduced the lending library which would eventually lead to Kindle Unlimited which would change the entire marketplace.

Before that time period and after that there was not much in the way of significant improvement.

What’s also stalled on some ereaders, is the quality of their software. Either I’ve gotten too comfortable using the Kindle or the Nook doesn’t feel as its keeping up anymore. The Nook app on the iPad feels better than the Nook itself.